In New York, Igor Shesterkin made 31 saves for his second straight shutout and the Rangers’ third straight, in a 3-0 win over the Winnipeg Jets on Tuesday night.
“It’s not just the last three games, the shutouts, it’s been the last number of games we’ve been playing a lot better defensively,” Rangers coach Gerard Gallant said. “It makes you feel more confident as a coach that you’re not just winning because of your goaltending.”
Alexander Georgiev defeated the Philadelphia Flyers, 4-0, earlier in the week to start the string.
Ryan Strome hit for a double for the Rangers.
“Guys are buying in pretty good,” Strome said. “I think we understand what it takes to win right now and what makes us successful, and when we do that for a good chunk of the game we give ourselves a good chance to win. Obviously, three straight wins is pretty impressive.”
New York improved to 50-21-6.
“As a coach, you never come in here and say, ‘Well, 50 wins would be a great season for us,'” Gallant said. “You just take it one game at a time and that’s how we do things. But it’s huge. It’s great to see. I don’t think they’ve done it too many times here. Five. What’s that say? It’s been a real good year and a lot of fun. We’ve got five games left and hopefully build on that.”
Adam Fox also scored, his goal game in the third period off a shot from the blue line, for a 2-0 lead.
“We’ve tried to attack with more speed on our entries on the power play,” Strome said. “Sometimes we get a little slow on the power play and that kind of hurts us. When things aren’t going great we can just use our speed and our skill and attack the net. You see the speed Mika had wide and I think that makes teams really respect him and someone gets open.”
The Jets dropped to 35-31-11.
“The fun part of hockey is winning games; within the game the fun part is dominating, playing the full 60 minutes with the other team feeling like they’re trying to catch up to you, to your pace, to your puck movement, to your pressure,” the Jets’ Pierre-Luc Dubois said. “I think that’s what’s frustrating. There’s some nights where it just feels like we’re playing catchup, even if we’re close, even if it’s a close game. With the talent we have, I think we can do a much better job of forcing teams to play our way, and not us feeling like we’re trying to catch up to their pace, trying to catch up to their puck movement and their breakouts, and everything.”
Eric Comrie made 31 saves in the hard luck loss for the Jets.
“I thought Eric played outstanding,” Winnipeg coach Dave Lowry said. “He made a lot of big saves, but he played quiet. The puck hit him. There were not a lot of second and third chances where pucks were hitting him and coming out. He was in control and he gave us a chance.”
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